Peter King to Ted Cruz: 'Keep quiet'

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) had strong words for Sen. Ted Cruz and his Republican cohort in the Senate on Thursday, painting them as disingenuous and insisting they should stay out of the House’s business.

“We are going to lose this,” said King on CNN, referring to the vote attaching the continuous resolution to the Obamacare defunding effort. “It’s a wing within our party led by people like Ted Cruz who have been, as far as I’m concerned, carrying out a fraud with the people…They know it’s not going to win.”

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King has been vocal about his belief that attaching Obamacare to the continuing resolution is a “crazy” strategy for the Republican Party. On Thursday, he took his comments further and suggested that Ted Cruz and like-minded colleagues should “keep quiet.”

“When Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Mike Lee fail in the Senate next week, maybe finally we Republicans will have ended their influence,” King said. “We as House Republicans should stop letting Ted Cruz set our agenda for us.”

“If he can deliver on this, fine. If he can’t, he should keep quiet from now on and we shouldn’t listen to him.”